Free Will Astrology

ARIES (March 21-April 19): From what I can tell, your excursion to Fake Paradise didn’t exact too serious a toll. The accidental detour may have seemed inopportune in the moment, but you know what? I think it slowed you down enough to keep you from doing something rash that you would have regretted later. And are you really sorry you were robbed of your cherished illusions? In the long run, I think it was for the best. As for the scratches on your nose from when you stuck it into business you weren’t “supposed” to: They’re a small price to pay for the piquant lesson you got in how not to live.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Some people are here on the planet to find success, while others are here to find themselves. In the big scheme of things, I’m not sure which category you fit into, Taurus. But I’m pretty sure that for the next few weeks you’ll be best served by acting as if you’re the latter. Even if you think you’ve found yourself pretty completely in the past, it’s time to go searching again: There are new secrets to be discovered, in large part because you’re not who you used to be. So for now at least, I encourage you to give your worldly ambitions a bit of a rest as you intensify your self-explorations.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Being a paragon of moral behavior can be fun and rewarding. It’s amazing how many interesting people want to play with me just because they think I’m so #%&@ high minded. But I’ve got to confess that my commitment to discipline and righteousness is sometimes at odds with my rebellious itch to give you mischievous nudges and outrageous challenges. Like right now, the conscientious teacher in me might prefer to advise you to keep a lid on debauchery, voracity, excess, uproar, slapstick, wisecracking, fireworks and limit pushing. But the rabble-rousing agitator in me feels obligated to inform you that at no other time in 2010 will the karmic price be lower for engaging in such pursuits.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): It’s time for you to stop specializing in furtive glimpses and start indulging in brazen gazes. You’re ready to phase out your role as a peripheral influence and see if you can be more of a high-intensity instigator and organizer. Yes, Cancerian, you’ve earned the right to claim more credibility and clout — to leave your tentative position outside the magic circle and head in the direction of the sweet hot spot.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): “Nature seems to exult in abounding radicality, extremism, anarchy,” wrote Annie Dillard in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. “If we were to judge nature by its common sense or likelihood, we wouldn’t believe the world existed. In nature, improbabilities are the one stock in trade. The whole creation is one lunatic fringe . . . No claims of any and all revelations could be so far-fetched as a single giraffe.” (Dillard’s entire passage is here: http://bit.ly/TinkerCreek.) Reading this passage is a good way for you to prepare for the immediate future, Leo. Why? Because you’ll soon be invited to commune with outlandish glory. You’ll be exposed to stories that burst from the heart of creation. You’ll be prodded to respond to marvelous blips with marvelous blips of your own. But here’s the catch: It may all remain invisible to you if you’re blinded by the false belief that you live a boring, ordinary life.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): The storm is your friend right now, Virgo. So are the deep, dark night and the last place you’d ever think of visiting and the most important thing you’ve forgotten about. So be more willing than usual to marinate in the mysteries — not with logical ferocity but with cagey curiosity. The areas of life that are most crucial for you to deal with can’t be fully understood using the concepts your rational mind favors. The feelings that will be most useful for you to explore are unlike those you’re familiar with.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Here’s your mantra for the coming week: “I disappear my fear. I resurrect my audacity.” Say it and sing it and murmur it at least 100 times a day. Let it flow out of you after you’ve awoken each morning and are still lying in bed. Let it be the last sound on your lips as you drop off to sleep. Have fun with it. Dip into your imagination to come up with different ways to let it fly — say it as your favorite cartoon character might say it, like a person with a Swedish accent, like your inner teenager, like a parrot, like a grinning sage. “I disappear my fear. I resurrect my audacity. I disappear my fear. I resurrect my audacity.”

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Have you ever heard about how some all-night convenience stores blast loud classical music out into the parking lot in order to discourage drug dealers from loitering? In the coming days, use that principle whenever you need to drive home a point or make a strong impression. Your aggressive expressions will be more effective if you take the darkness and anger out of them, and instead fill them up with forceful grace and propulsive compassion.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): The Hebrew word chalom means “dream.” In his book Healing Dreams, Marc Ian Barasch notes that it’s derived from the verb “to be made healthy and strong.” Linguist Joseph Jastrow says that chalom is related to the Hebrew word hachlama, which means “recovery, recuperation.” Extrapolating from these poetic hints and riffing on your astrological omens, I’ve got a prescription for you to consider: To build your vitality in the coming weeks, feed your dreams. And I mean “dreams” in both the sense of the nocturnal adventures you have while you’re sleeping and the sweeping daytime visions of what you’d like to become.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): I just found out the American shipping company UPS has legally trademarked the color brown. The grassroots activist in me is incredulous and appalled. But the poet in me doesn’t really care; it’s fine if UPS owns drab, prosaic brown. I’ve still got mahogany at my command, as well as tawny, sepia, taupe, burnt umber, tan, cinnamon, walnut and henna. That’s especially important for this horoscope, Capricorn, because I’m advising you to be very down to earth, be willing to get your hands dirty, and even play in the muck if necessary in order to take good care of the basics. But don’t do any of that in a boring, humdrum “brown” way. Do it exotically and imaginatively, like mahogany, tawny, sepia, taupe, burnt umber, tan, cinnamon, walnut and henna.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): You are hereby excused from having to know a single nuance about the inside story of Angelina Jolie’s secret love tryst with Lady Gaga, or the addictions of conspiracy theorists who lose huge sums of money gambling on the end of the world, or the agony that millionaires suffer from having to support social services with their taxes. In fact, it’s a good time to empty your mind of extraneous, trivial and useless facts so that you can clear vast new spaces for more pressing data, like how you can upgrade your communication skills, why you should do some upkeep on your close alliances, and what you might do to streamline your social life.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): In my astrological opinion, you don’t need anything that shrinks you or deflates you or tames you. Influences that pinch your imagination should be taboo, as should anything that squashes your hope or crimps your life force. To make proper use of the vibrations circulating in your vicinity, Pisces, you should gravitate toward situations that pump up your insouciance and energize your whimsy and incite you to express the most benevolent wickedness you can imagine. You’ve got a mandate to fatten up your soul so it can contain a vaster sense of wonder and a more daring brand of innocence.

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